Tag Archives: fisheries management

It is fall and Nebraska fisheries biologists are in the midst of their annual fish sampling activities on lakes, reservoirs, pits and ponds across the state.  It is a busy time of year.  The sampling of fish in our public waters is necessary to gauge the health of the fish populations in those waters and evaluate fisheries management activities like habitat enhancement, harvest regulations and stocking programs.  The data collected from our fish communities is invaluable to pointy-headed fisheries biologists. …

I like to give updates whenever I can on some of the fish sampling our Game & Parks fisheries biologists are doing around the state.  Admittedly, in most of those updates I have showed pictures of fish sampled from our state’s lakes, reservoirs, pits and ponds.  We also do work on a variety of rivers and streams in Nebraska including cold-water streams that support year-around, reproducing populations of trout.  I mentioned some of that cold-water stream sampling earlier this year, …

The lakes on the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge have been some of the most unique and best fisheries in Nebraska for a long, long time.  Several generations of Nebraskans have stories of pulling big beautiful panfish, pike, and largemouth bass through ice holes drilled on those Valentine Refuge lakes.  The open-water fishing has provided just as many memories. In conjunction with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service which owns and operates the refuge, the Nebraska Game & Parks Commission through …

LINCOLN, Neb. – A public informational meeting regarding the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge fisheries will be held Oct. 5 in Valentine. The meeting, hosted by the refuge and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, will be held from 7-9 p.m. at the Niobrara Lodge, 803 E. U.S. Highway 20. Presentations will be given on improvements over the past several years, ongoing fish management surveys, fish populations for individual lakes, plans to eradicate common carp, and proposed future fisheries management actions. …

It was late afternoon, the day was winding down; my phone rang.  I answered and listened as an angler at nearby Bowling Lake described a fish he had just caught and laid in the grass; something he had never seen before.  Identifying fish over the phone is always a challenge, but in this case I had an idea what he had caught.  I asked him if he would be there for a few more minutes, I was on my way. …

Why do some people get perplexed when they see someone release a massive, master angler-sized catfish? After all, catfish, even the larger ones, sure taste good, don’t they? So why is it every time we see an angler report or a social media post mention or show a picture of a large catfish they have put back in the water, a spirited discussion most likely ensues over what should or should have not been done with that whopper? So how …

Once again I want to give you an update on the sampling activities of our Game & Parks Commission fisheries biologists and give you an idea of some of the fish they are seeing out there! You know my usual disclaimer, when fisheries biologists are sampling fish we do NOT necessarily go out and just try to collect the biggest fish.  Anglers as a group will see more big fish, and often the biggest fish because anglers target big fish. …

This blog post is going to be a real easy one for me, I am simply going to tell you to follow a link and read another blog post done by one of my Game & Parks Commission co-workers.  Recently, Justin Haag was able to tag along with a couple of our fisheries biologists in western Nebraska while they horse-backed into one of our most remote, and unique, fisheries to do some sampling.  Justin blogged about it here, Fisheries Work …

Spring is a very busy time for Nebraska Game & Parks Commission fisheries workers; fish to be stocked, fish to be spawned, sampling to be done, eggs to be hatched, etc., etc.  I will always tell you that in our field work we do NOT necessarily see the biggest fish that are present in our waters.  If you want to see that, anglers as a group target big fish and are most likely to encounter the biggest fish in any …

I hate to repeat “stuff” on my blog, but when talking about fish and fishing, a lot of what happens occurs seasonally, at about the same time every year.  So, you might have read one of my blog posts a lot like this one before, but I have also learned that there are new folks reading this “stuff” all the time. Every year about this time you can expect me to say something about the walleye spawn.  It is early …